Conversation

I'm reading George Lakoff's Metaphors We Live By.

Most of us think of argument as war; as something to be won or lost. We attack our opponent's positions. We shoot down their points.

What if we came upon a culture that viewed argument not as war, but something else; for instance, dance? They would experience argument differently than us.

Yet we would not recognize them as arguing. They'd be doing something else, for us.

Metaphor is cognitive and experiential, not just linguistic.